Editorial Commentary: Be Careful about Drawing Big Conclusions from Big Data

摘要

The article by Hamaji and Burt (Long-Term Outcomes of Surgical and Nonsurgical Management of Stage IV Thymoma: A Population-Based Analysis of 282 Patients, this issue) is an analysis of the outcomes of 282 patients with metastatic thymoma from the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results (SEER) database from 1988-2000. The study encompasses both surgically managed (39%) and nonsur-gically managed patients, in contrast to most single-institution series that involve primarily a surgical cohort only and are much smaller. Surgical management involved a variety of procedures, ranging from complete (R0) resection to an array of partial resections (but excluding a biopsy only).